Wicked at Heart (35 page)

"You've
drugged it," he murmured.

"Yes.  Laudanum. 
It will make you sleep."

 He was too sick
to fight with her, and he didn't mind sleep, as long as
she
stayed with
him and Mama didn't seek him out in his nightmares and he woke to find this
woman sitting here beside him all over again, hugging him.  He took another sip
and listened to the rain outside and her quiet breathing as she sat beside him,
and felt a deep, languorous peace stealing over him.

Nice, he
thought.

Peace.
  Stillness. 
How strange it felt after living so much of his life in a state of churning
emotion.  How blessedly wonderful.

Finally she took
the glass away and picked up his loose fist once more, wrapping her little
hands around it.  She remained silent, and he wondered if she were quietly
waiting for the laudanum to take effect, to drag him back down into that place
where everything was nothing and nothing was everything and neither everything
nor nothing mattered.

"Lady
Simms?" he whispered.

"Yes?"

He swallowed
hard, gathering the courage to say what he must.  "You . . . you won't
leave me, will you?"

She squeezed his
fist within her hands, as though she knew how much it had cost him to ask her
that.  Then she lifted his hand to her lips, and he felt the fragile bones of
her face beneath his knuckles, the cool silk of her skin, the feathery graze of
her hair.

"Not if you
don't want me to."

The laudanum was
already washing in a fog over his senses, dulling them, muddying them,
darkening them.  He had a crazy vision of his skull, cracked and broken, and
the laudanum leaching into his brain from all the little fissures,
extinguishing it, extinguishing
him
.

Tell her,
before it's too late.

"
Do
you wish me to leave, Damon?"

Her voice came
from far, far away.  His body was leaden, and someone was lowering him on a
great, swinging cot, down, down . . . down.

"Damon?"

"No,"
he whispered.  "I don't . . . want . . . you to go."

He fell asleep
with his knuckles still pressed against her cheek.

~~~~

"Toby
Ashton!  You in here?  Come on out, damn your eyes, I'm sick to death of
chasin' ye around!"

The door of the forward
garrison opened, admitting a sliver of light.  Toby crouched miserably in a
corner, staring fixedly at that widening slit.  Since the prisoner uprising
he'd managed to stay out of the way of the sentries who'd paced the deck and
gallery, managed to avoid  Foyle and Radley, managed to make himself as
insignificant as he felt.  The ship was charged with tension, and the guards,
whose capacity for abuse seemed to have increased markedly since the revolt,
were not inclined to be kind to a skinny, starving American, the sight of whom
seemed only to disgust and annoy them all the more.  They were not above laying
their muskets across his arse if he didn't get out of the way fast enough — but
still, working up here for Jack Clayton and doing an odd job or two was better
than returning to the hell belowdecks, which was the only other fate open to
him.

The door was
opening further.  "Toby?  Bloody hell, you in there?"

He thought the
voice was Clayton's, but he wasn't sure, and because he wasn't sure, he wasn't
going to risk leaving his hiding place.  Besides, the English all sounded
alike.  Well, all of them except for the dead marquess, whose speech had been
polished, articulate, cultured, so different from the lower class guards who
had served him.  Poor Lord Morninghall.  Despite that last, angry scene with
him, Toby could not help but feel responsible for his death.  After all,
he'd
been the one to tell Armand — admittedly, under duress — the details of
Morninghall's schedule.  He should've warned the marquess what they'd been
plotting.

But I did
warn him!
he reminded himself fiercely. 
I did warn him, and he would
not listen!

And now the
marquess, his savior, the monster who had taken pity on him, was dead.

Toby had no
doubt about
that
.  After the guards had finally contained the revolt,
he'd watched them remove Lord Morninghall's body from the cabin.  He'd seen his
swollen, bloody face, the huge crimson stain on his snowy shirt, the slow drip,
drip, drip of the blood across the deck as they'd carried him off the ship. 
Toby knew a dead body when he saw one, and if that wasn't confirmation enough,
Foyle's satisfied smile as he watched this sad sight would have been, because
everyone knew Foyle had despised the marquess.  And the trail of blood was
still there on the deck, now a deep, rusty color, like paint that had dripped
from some huge and awful brush and left to dry.

It was
ridiculous to think that anyone would have cleaned it up.  Lord Morninghall had
been a fastidious and, when the mood took him, compassionate man, and had at
least made an effort to make things better than they might've been.  In
hindsight Toby remembered how he'd had the decks scrubbed and doused with
vinegar every day; how he'd set the windsails above to try and direct the
breeze down into the dank and stinking hold; how he'd discovered that cheating
contractor and might have exposed God knew how many more, had he only lived. 
And, Toby thought with trembling lip,
how he tried to help me
. 
Midshipman Foyle, however, in temporary command until Bolton could appoint
another, was cut from an entirely different cloth than his elegant, well-bred predecessor. 
Since he'd been in control, Foyle had been lording it over the hulk like a
bantam in a barnyard, bullying, swaggering, posing and threatening.  Punishment
and abuse were highest on his list of priorities.

"Toby
Ashton?  Where the hell are you?"

Yes, it
was
Jack Clayton, after all.  Toby sighed with relief.  The big guard had been like
a watchdog, so devoted had he been to Lord Morninghall, and though he was stern,
intimidating, and unwashed, there was a kind streak in him that Toby inherently
sensed and trusted.  He relaxed and moved hesitantly out of the shadows.

Clayton immediately
seized his elbow and pushed him back into the corner.

"Now listen
up, an' listen up good," he whispered fiercely, with a quick glance over
his shoulder.  "I got a message for you from the Black Wolf, but you tell
anybody I gave it to you and I'll come back from the grave after they kill me
an' murder ye with my bare hands."

"
The
Black Wolf?
"  Toby's eyes widened in disbelief.  "But how do you
know about . . ."

"Never
mind, that don't make no difference an' I ain't got time to be explainin'. 
He's comin' for ye soon, and it'll be yer only chance to escape.  Got that?"

"Yes, sir. 
But when?"

"He's
waitin' for the ship to calm down.  Radley's got eagle eyes, y'know."

"I know. 
But how does he plan to get me out?  I can't swim!"

"Ye're
goin' out in an empty water barrel when we send 'em ashore for refillin'.  Broad
daylight.  Mind barrels, kid?"

Toby shook his
head slowly.  "No, Mr. Clayton . . .  I don't mind barrels."

"Good." 
The guard straightened up, spat on the filthy deck, and nodded back toward the
shadows.  "Get on with ye then and stay out o' trouble, and don't let me
hear another word about it, ye hear?"

The door closed
behind him, and all was dark in the room once more.  Toby sighed and felt tears
leaking out of his eyes.  Nathan was dead, Morninghall was dead, most of his
shipmates had escaped — or were dead.

But Connor was
alive.

Brave,
wonderful, Connor.

And Connor
was coming for him.

Chapter
22

Dour and
bespectacled, Dr. Phineas MacDowell was about as cheerful as the Scottish
climate that had bred him, with a grizzled head of hair that still showed traces
of red in its wildly curling locks.  Now, with the help of Britwell, the gloomy
Scot heaved and struggled and managed to slide the Marquess of Morninghall's
sweat-drenched body as close to the edge of the big bed as it could be moved
without his tumbling off.  There he turned him onto his left side so that his
right arm hung over the edge.

Bloodletting was
a daily ritual, and Britwell's face mirrored his distaste for it.  He looked
down at his master, who was feverish and semi-conscious.

"Are you
certain that bleeding him is not doing more harm than good?" he asked as
the doctor retrieved the pewter bowl he used for the treatment.  "You know
how Her Ladyship feels about it."

"Her
Ladyship is not a doctor," MacDowell grunted, pulling his lancet from his
bag.  "This is the only way to remove excesses and irritability from the
blood, and I can't think of a better way to restore your lord to health.  Now
get me that bucket of hot water and stop questioning my skills."

Sighing,
Britwell did as he was asked and placed the pail on a chair next to the bed. 
The doctor reached for Lord Morninghall's arm; His Lordship swore weakly and
tried to pull it away.  But sick and helpless as he was, he was no match for
the Scot, who was now forcing the arm downward and pushing the hand and wrist
into the bucket of hot water to swell the veins.  Fervently, Britwell prayed for
Lady Simms to come back.  She and her sister had gone out to the garden to
gather a bunch of fresh flowers, and she was the only one who'd been able to
intimidate the doctor out of performing this ghastly treatment.

"Hold him
down," MacDowell growled.  "I can't do two things at once."

His face tight
with protest, Britwell steadied Lord Morninghall's shoulder as the doctor
pulled his hand from the bucket.  The fingers were still dripping water. 
MacDowell tied a tape around the wrist at the pulse, flexed the fingers back
and forth a few times, and finally pulled them all the way back, exposing a
vein at the underside of the wrist.

"I really
think —"

"I don't want
to hear it, Britwell.  Can't you see your master's running a fever?  Do you
want him to die?  Besides, he can't feel a damned thing anyhow; he's out of his
head."

And with that
MacDowell touched the scalpel to the vein.

But Damon, who
was drifting in and out of the blanketing effect of laudanum, felt it
immediately.  He flinched and tried to jerk away, but it was no use.  The
doctor held him tight, and he could not fight the man's strength.  He tried not
to listen to the sound of his blood, trickling down his palm and into the
pewter bowl.  It was an alarming, awful sensation, as though his life itself were
draining out of him, and he could already feel anxiety creeping in from the
farthest corners of his foggy brain.

"Stop,"
he whispered, but MacDowell, still chastising Britwell for interfering, did not
hear him.  "Please . . ."

The anxiety was
getting worse, beginning to affect his breathing now.

"Please,
stop . . ."

Footsteps were
coming down the hall.

It was his
savior, and he knew it the moment
she
was in the room.

"
Dr.
MacDowell!
"  Her voice was like a thunderclap.  Damon sighed in relief
as he heard her storm angrily across the floor to the other side of the bed. 
"I'll thank you to stop that beastly exercise this very moment!"

"Under the
circumstances it's advisable, my lady —"

"God gave
us each a certain amount of blood, and if he didn't want us to have that much
he never would've been so generous with it in the first place!  Lift  his hand
and stop the bleeding at once."

"But —"

"
Do it
!"

Swearing under
his breath, the doctor raised Damon's arm.  Damon felt the man's fingers biting
angrily into his wrist, felt the warm blood trickling down his skin and into
the inside of his elbow.  His head felt suddenly faint, and he must have passed
out, for the next thing he knew, there was only stillness, warm arms embracing
him, and the sound of quiet weeping.

It was Gwyneth,
and she was crying over him.

Just as he'd
never had anyone hug him before, he'd never had anyone cry over him either.

He weakly moved
his head on the pillow, trying to let her know he was there.

"Oh, Damon.
. . .  If I'd known that bloodthirsty
wretch
was going to do such a
thing the minute I turned my back, I would never have left you.  Oh, please
forgive me, my darling . . ."  She broke down in more tears, their warm
moisture spreading over his neck and chest.  "I'm so sorry . . ."

"Nothing .
. . to forgive," he whispered into the darkness that cloaked him, and
tried to raise his other arm to rest it across her shoulders.  But he hadn't the
strength to do even that.

"He hurt
you.  That's it, Damon, I don't care if he
has
served your family nearly
as long as Britwell, I'm sending straight to the village for someone
else."

He merely smiled
weakly, for it took all his strength to move even the muscles of his face.  "You're
. . . the first champion . . . I've ever had," he whispered.  And then,
with what he hoped was light humor, "Glad I don't . . . have to face the
doctors . . . alone."

"Never,
Damon.  I swear it."

She held him for
a long time.  Presently the warmth of her body, combined with such a resolute
promise, brought him a feeling of peaceful security, and he let go of
consciousness and allowed himself to sink back into darkness.

~~~~

The new doctor
didn't even try to bleed the marquess, having already heard tales from the
villagers, who'd heard them from the servants, of Lady Gwyneth Evans Simms'
ferocity.  He came twice a day to change the dressings on his patient's back,
advise ways to keep the fever — which came and went with alarming regularity —
down, and make guarded, hesitant predictions with regards to his patient's
prognosis.  He made no bones about the fact that he found Lord Morninghall's
fever a matter of grave concern.  Such a concern was not easy to discount, as
Damon's fever burned the sheets beneath him, indeed, the very air that
surrounded his body, and pus soaked the wrappings that girded his shoulder and
made the room stink of imminent death.